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Monday, May 11, 2009

A Voice Behind Bars

Iván García called me at home two weeks ago and was trying to materialize an idea: to open a blog by Pablo Pacheco, an independent journalist and prisoner of conscience since the Black Spring of 2003, sentenced to 20 years imprisonment (to publish what he’s thinking, obviously).

It seemed like a great idea to us, Yoani Sánchez (master of achieving the impossible with 25 kb) was responsible for creating the blog in Voces Cubanas, organizing the categories, and designing the blog; Ciro, a little unsure of his capabilities, made the header (which we haven’t managed to load yet); with a voice recorder I recorded the voice of Pacheco who called me from Canaleta en Ciego de Ávila prison and read me his post; then I downloaded the audio files to the computer and gave them on a flash drive to Iván, who was democratically chosen as “Chief of Composition.”

Despite having everything ready, two long weeks passed between the typical obstacles and the new regulations on the Internet and it took us a little longer than we expected. But now, finally, we can happily say that Pablo Pacheco’s blog—Voice Behind Bars—is on the air.

Why Octavo Cerco [Eighth Circle]?

This is an excerpt to a version of the song, Epitaph for Vladimir Visotski by Karsmarski Jacek (Polish dissident songwriter), which includes Ciro Diaz in his latest album, The Blue Slug, that I listened to compulsively for at least two months, especially on the street with my mp3 inherited from a friend who now has an I-pod.(Download the lyrics here)(Download the recording and album cover here)The song (in summary, which runs about ten minutes) is about a desperate artist going through the circles of hell in search of an answer or death, and at the end of his journey there is only loneliness and the weight of the supreme power above himself.So I found myself at times catching the bus across Havana at 12 noon in August under the perennial sunshine and with the distressing feeling of not going anywhere, or arriving too late, or going for pleasure ... I feel that I have already arrived at the eighth enclosure (this is the finale of the song) where there is nothing, and I feel useless and empty, and I look at people without faith who walk along the street and who have so much fear that they no longer know they're afraid, and who have seen so many Roundtables and so many news broadcasts that they no longer know what belongs to reality or just to the TV screen. They cannot discern that they no longer believe, but cannot disbelieve either, and just move along past me not going anywhere.